Australia’s first integrated, entirely paperless and AI-powered commercial lending platform designed for both brokers and borrowers has launched, with several million dollars and three years invested in its development to date. Offering more than 450 lenders, the platform has the capacity for $1bn in settlements per month and – in an era of tightening lending by the banks – the developer has predicted it will boost commercial loan approvals by 500 per cent.
Lenflo – developed by commercial lender Global Capital Commercial and funded by its parent company, corporate adviser and lender Challis Capital Partners – gives borrowers access to loans by investment banks, private lenders and high-net-worth investors, as well as banks and non-banks. The platform manages commercial property loans, development finance, residential loans and SMSF loans for business borrowers, business loans and equipment finance.
While online platforms for residential loans exist in the market, Lenflo is the first-to-market commercial loan platform. Its other point of difference is its AI-powered pricing engine: commercial loans are much more complicated than residential loans and Lenflo’s pricing engine has delivered indicative funding proposals with over 97 per cent accuracy in lender approval rating during its year-long testing period. (Commercial and private lenders typically do not have fixed pricing and instead offer risk-based guidelines on a deal-by-deal basis.) In addition, Lenflo reduces loan application and approval times by more than 75 per cent, with indicative funding proposals delivered in as little as 10 minutes.
For Global Capital Commercial, which has originated over $10 billion in commercial loans since 2001, with current monthly volumes over $300 million, the product has been the result of extensive years of searching the market for similar platforms. “If we could find such a platform, we would have bought it – even at a six-figure sum,” says Global Capital Commercial spokesperson Andrew West. “Most of what we found were dated access databases that could not incorporate emerging technologies that integrate and streamline the enquiry-to-settlement process.”
Apart from the myriad borrower benefits, Lenflo’s AI technology will enable home loan brokers to now offer commercial and business loans. In light of the recommendations of the Banking Royal Commission final report – which will make business tougher for brokers – the platform will help brokers diversify and significantly grow their business. Feedback from Global Capital Commercial’s home loan brokers is their revenues had already dropped by up to 40-50 per cent in the tightening residential market from peak 2017 levels – and further drops will take place in 2020, when the Royal Commission’s recommendations take place.
“Our platform will help brokers maintain their incomes in 2020 and beyond – they are able to immediately moving into commercial loans. Our AI-driven pricing engine identifies the optimum finance product for any requirement. Instead of painstakingly researching areas of business they are not familiar with, brokers are guided through the process required for a particular borrower category, from property developers, property purchase and loan refinancing, to self-employed borrowers, SMSFs, bridging finance and other business customers. As financial products become more sophisticated and niches grow, there are more specialist areas of lending dotting the landscape. Our platform will help brokers successfully navigate these areas,” Andrew says.
